Tag Archives: writing

I miss my characters. I finished a story for the Goodreads MM Romance group Love’s Landscape a week ago. I’m waiting to hear from an editor who’ll have the brilliant job of reading my crap. Poor, poor volunteer editor.

That said, I miss the characters. I think about them when I’m driving, when I’m reading, in my shower, or now, in front of my computer.

I want to write more about them. Ideas keep popping up in my mind. They have more to say, more to experience, more to share.

Not well, a bit awkward, but I did it. I wrote 32,000 words for a story! Yay! It’ll be published someday by the Goodreads group. Phew.

I’m so proud I could burst. Not about the work, because I frankly don’t think it’s very good – it may be readable but it could be so much better. I’m proud because I finished it.

I had been taking 10 measly little milligrams of Ritalin a day and the story was just not coming out. It was in my head, but it was sluggish and I couldn’t find the ending. May 1st came around and the story had a beginning but no end, no meat, no structure, nothing but a bunch of incoherent thoughts I couldn’t reach even if I felt they were there all along. I got an extension to May 15th and I started taking 20 mg of Biphentin (same molecule as Ritalin but slow released).

Miraculously, the story just wrote itself. The ending is a bit rushed because I had to finish it quickly and I even asked for an extra day.

In this post, I was questioning my sanity in signing up for the Love’s Landscape Event on Goodreads. Remember? No? No problem: I signed up to write a story from a photo prompt.

The story is due May 1st. That’s in five days. I’ve known about this event for a month. I started writing three weeks ago. I wrote around four thousand words, only to scrap about a thousand. Then I stepped away from it for many days, waiting for inspiration. I’ve had an idea of what the story would be about since I saw the photo, but certain key elements were still vague.

I’ve been trying Ritalin for my ADHD. I’m still taking a baby dose because after what happened with the Strattera, the doctor is weary of my reactions to meds. No kidding.

I was hoping the Ritalin would help me write this story. Actually, I was counting on it. It didn’t happen. I’m hardly feeling anything positive but then I’m not suffering from horrible side effects either, so that’s good I guess. Still, I shouldn’t have counted on that.

In perfect ADHD mode, I’ve procrastinated until five days from the due date to write the story. I’ve been writing furiously for four hours today. I’m up to 8,700 words so far.

This is it. This book made me feel. Like, everything. Their love, their troubles, the beauty of their relationship.

At 80% in the book, I wanted to write to the author to let him know how much I enjoyed his writing. The images he creates with words are so real, poignant, honest and true you can’t help but be impressed. I was saying to myself: “Well perfection’s been done, so I might as well quit writing altogether”.

Then WHAM! Like an old Batman episode. POW! And another hit to the gut. At about 90% the story just crumbles. One minute they’re fine the next their life as they know it is over. And I mean over. I skimmed the ending just because I couldn’t bear to read it. I just couldn’t. No HEA here.

Now I want to write the author to give him shit for putting his characters and his readers through so much fucking pain. I mean, come on! This is the closest I’ve ever been to crying over a book! I NEVER cry! Ever.

Fuck. I guess he did a good job. His book moved me like no other in a long, long time.

NOTE: This book contains explicit language, sexual content, slightly inappropriate humor and is recommended for mature audiences who like that sorta thing. This book is also a less explicit version of Ian Dalton’s novel Inappropriate Thoughts. For more information, please see Luke Young’s Amazon author page.

Friends with Partial Benefits

You read this at the end of the description of a book you’re thinking of downloading (for free) on Amazon. It’s under Romance, Humour. You download the book. You start reading it and get to a sex scene.

Are you surprised? Are you shocked? It says so right there: “explicit language, sexual content”.

So of course you run to your keyboard and write a one-star review about it being porn and how you weren’t aware of what you were going to read (!) and of course insult the author.